Scenario 21: Against the World

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Scenario 21: Against the World

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(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?
(4) What were the major challenges you faced?
(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?
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Telchin
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by Telchin »

Hello, I've recently played this campaign and it was fun, so I decided to give some feedback. As I abuse save-loading in all campaigns I play (including my own) I don't consider myself worthy to provide useful feedback on the campaign's difficulty, so I won't post feedback for all scenarios, but given that this thread has no replies I decided to post by ideas on this scenario and the campaign as whole:
(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on ?
1.14.2, the easiest difficulty and lots of save-loading :oops:
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7 before I killed the knight leader, then it got easier, perhaps as low as 3, but that's because my abuse of save-loading in both this and the previous scenarios provided me with enough level 2+ units to fight on two fronts and kill the naga and saurians leaders quickly. Also it's good that not all enemies apppear at the start as even with total of 30 units (including loayals) I had trouble fighting more than two sides at once.
(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?
I liked how pretty much all of the people you ticked off in previous scenarios come back at you (There are no orcs or trolls, but I suppose that adding even more enemy sides would make the scenario unbeatable without cheating). I was surprised that the elvish leader wasn't the enchantress from the Walking Trees scenario (after she summoned the woses and walked off I expected her to come back later). The campaign as whole ends less depressingly than Descend into Darkness, but it still ends with the protagonist hidden in a cave without full-filling her main goal (I suppose the author wanted an open possibility to revisit Ardryn-Na in another campaign).
(4) What were the major challenges you faced?
The knights. They're faster than most my units, their charges can do high damage even to units that are nominally resistant to piercing damage and paladins can brutalize most undead with their arcane damage. In hindsight I could fight fire with fire by recruiting chocobones, but I didn't do that. Instead I played defensively, luring the knights to the bridge over water, so I they couldn't gang up on my units, but my units (mostly liches, but also death knight powered bone shooters) could gang up on them and I only moved to the southern side of the map when most knights were dead.
(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
About 5, but it ebbed and flowed. It started almost frustating (see previous question), then I got encouraged as I weathered the initial onslaught and started to kill the enemy leaders one by one, then it turned boring as I effectively won, but had to spend few turns moving my units over empty terrain to finish off the last enemy leader (the dwarf to be precise). I suppose that without save-loading it would be intense start to finish (or rather frustrating from start to premature unsuccesful end :augh:).
(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?
My first thought was to change the knights to regular human infantry (see question 4 above) and to balance this nerf add another enemy side. IIRC BfW can handle 9 sides in one scenario and (as I mentioned above) the protagonist also run into orcs in the campaign. I know that lorewise orcs don't work with elves and humans often, but the enemy alliance in this scenario already includes both mermen and nagas and those are supposed to be mortal enemies. On topic of elves in this scenario, I was surprised that they can't recruit woses (see question 3 above). While justified by the story, having both mermen and nagas on a mostly land-based map seemed redundant. The nagas at least started close to my base and were quickly joined by the saurians, but the merfolk has to take a detour on east side of the map. By the time they engaged my units I have already defeated both reptilian species and quickly finished the fish people too. On less mechanical note I would like some story text after killing each enemy leader instead just after killing all of them. Sure they are effectively no-names (see my 2nd comment below), but this is the last scenario, let our protagionist gloat or something. It would be also nice, if there was some dialogue between our saurian healer and the enemy saurians (see my 3rd comment below).

Now some comments about the campaign as whole (maybe they are better suited to a different thread, if it's true and some moderator is reading this, please tell me):
  • Finally we have a mainline campaign with a female protagonist! It only took 17 mainline campaigns! :D Interestingly it's an undead campaign and most undead characters in other mainline campaigns (e.g. Jevyan, Mal-Ravanal, Mal-Keshar) are male so this is another achievement in diversity for this campaign (of course, once you become an undead lich, your reproductory organs aren't that important anymore :P ).
  • Now some nitpick before I move to more positive comments. After several unique gimmicks earlier in the campaign (e.g. recruiting walking corpses from graces in Dark Business) I was dissappointed that the last few scenarios were mostly run of the mill "kill enemy leaders". I guess that the number (and staggered appearance) of enemies in the last scenario could be counted as a "gimmick". It doesn't help that this campaign doesn't have any central antagonist, just some random no-names that get in the protagonist's way (only notable one is Crelanu, who is from a different campaign). I suppose the lack of an arch-enemy is meant set this campaign apart (the "hero must stop a big bad evil guy" plot is overused in BfW), but it reminded me of DiD, which also doesn't have a central antagonist and also has a protagonist who starts with good intentions and ends an enemy of the entire world (on the upside Ardonna wasn't as angsty as Malin and Ras-Tabahn doesn't turn against her as Darken Volk does to Keshar).
  • Another nitpick concerns the saurian healer. I like that unlike DiD I had acces to healing (and leadership, see below), but I think the saurians's story potential was underused - he only get lines when he first appears and get a token mention in the epilogue. Note that I didn't even bothered to remember his name, that's how out of focus he is (he doesn't even say anything if he dies!). That's a pity because there was a potential - he allegedly tried to persuade other lizardmen against fighting Ardynna, but we never see it (neither in his introductory scenario, nor in the last one, see qiestion 6 above). Give me some saurian philosophy debate!
  • Now on positives: I liked that I got to recruit skeletons (both melee and archers) before getting ghouls and ghost. In the opposite in DiD, which meant that in earlier scenarios I lacked high damage attacks and when the skeletons were finally introduced I already had promoted ghost and could assassinate enemy leaders instead of fighting them conventionally. In this campaign both skeletons and ghosts get their time to shine.
  • Another difference from DiD is that I got access to healing (see above) and leadership. At first I was disappointed that the undead captain can't promote to level 3 (to be fair, it made sense in the story), but then I realized that I can upgrade my revenants to death knight. I only made one (I didn't want to waste too much upkeep on units that can't advance further) but he was so useful, that I recalled him in every scenario since (including the last one).
  • I advanced Carcyn into a highwayman and Shyla into a fugitive. I figured that having unit types I could't get otherwise might prove useful later (e.g. the high impact damage might be useful in case of undead vs. undead battle, which ultimately didn't happen in this campaign). I still got multiple liches from regular DAs. Sure my ability to get multiple high level units was thanks to above-mentioned save-loading, but without that exploit I would't be able to level the criminal kids either (they start as level 0!), so I don't think I missed much by not turning them into DAs.
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by Konrad2 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

Diabolic, 1.14.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

5, see 'major challenges'.

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

I like the epilogue more than the scenario. But well. It was okay.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

Looking at my replay there was no single instance where I was really in trouble. There were some close calls with a leader, but those were only because of me being neglient, not because of a challenge. Those armies are basically parts of a bigger army that would have a chance to take me down by working together and covering for each other, but instead I only have to deal with it's separate parts one by one, so I can just play my strenghts against their weaknesses. (Saurians, Naga, Riders, Elves and Mages are not balanced against undead. Dwarves and Merman can be dealt with relatively easily by fighting them on favourable terrain. The Riders might have spelled more trouble if there wasn't this deep river providing a small number of choke points and good defensive positions.)
I can't claim that I made the best calls I could have made, instead I 'threw away' multiple units to either accelerate the scenario or because I didn't think I need to protect them to win.

(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

7

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

Add Orcs in so all of my enemies are assembled.
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SanDonk
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by SanDonk »

Still trying to beat this for 3 months (unsuccessfully)

1) Medium (yes, still...)
2) 10 even on medium, still did not find a solution...
3) Did not finish yet, waiting to see epilogue
4) Waves and waves of enemies...it might be my mismanagement in previous missions also (starting with 566 gold including the scenario´s base and with only 3 remaining wraiths and no unit at lvl2), but can´t think of any strategy, that I did not try. At best I was able to wipe out the nagas, saurians, mermen, knights and dwarfs getting slained by the late-arrived elves and mages after massive siege in the dwarf keep in the mountains (being too exhausted to fight them).
I always get through those nagas and saurians quickly, then I capture the northern half of the map and fight the knights (and later dwarfs) over the bridge and the water village rotating the injured units and waiting for the mermen to come closer. Those battles (awful impact damage dwarfs, knights and paladins including the leader, who I have to chase in his open terrain while he continues recruiting and mermen including that sprites/fairies) always cost me about 2/3 of the army (usually down to cca 10 units from cca 30) and then I am not able to fight several rounds of elves and mages the same time.
I have tried different strategies - divide the army and fight mermen and knights the same time; stop the mermen before entering naga keep and start recruiting; running into the south and cleansing it before returning to face the mermen with full army; recruit mainly ghosts, mainly skeletons, walking corpses...
Any idea, what I do wrong?
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by beetlenaut »

SanDonk wrote: November 12th, 2018, 4:52 amstarting with 566 gold including the scenario´s base and with only 3 remaining wraiths and no unit at lvl2
You don't mean that all your other units are at level 1, do you? If so, I doubt you can win. Your gold seems fine, but you need a pretty powerful army for this scenario. On medium, you probably need three or four ancient liches, and five or six spectres with a bunch of other high-level units including some bone shooters or banebows to take out the knights. You might need to go back one or two scenarios if you just lost a lot of units.
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SanDonk
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by SanDonk »

Yes, I do. I might try to go as back as scenario 14 or 15, but it does not seem much likely to pass specifically through 15, 18 and 20 without loosing of virtually entire party (might try the walking corpses strategy in 15 and spare units though).
I have no problems with evolving ať least 5 or 6 ghosts to spectres against these 2lvls at place (it takes just two kills), but it did not seem enough. Ancient liches are only Ardryn-Na and Ras-Tabah (they were essential in breaking those knights waves always) and banebones/shooters were always extremely fragile, so I never managed to keep them alive (perhaps not recalling them in previous scenarios might be solution?).
Anyways thanks. It looks like a great final battle, just my party is totally exhausted at the beginning, because there are several tough scenarios.
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by Konrad2 »

You can try taking a look at the replays for the previous scenarios. Maybe it helps.
Thrash
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by Thrash »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

1.14.5, Corrupt (Challenging), 552 gold

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

7

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

Good.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

Maintaining shifting fronts knowing how to keep forces balanced. Dealing with nagas from the East and knights, including paladins, from the South at the start. Saurians coming in from the North around turn 5. Dwarves threatening from the west around turn 9. Mermen swimming around and arriving around turn 12. Mages arriving from the NW at turn 15. And then the elves from the south on turn 16. It's particularly hard to hold the ford to the west of the bridge when the mages hit. Replay is my second attempt and I almost lost the same way as my first, when I got a key leader overwhelmed to the west.

Nagas, saurians, and knights are all fast enough to flank a front.

(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

7

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

The end is a bit of a slog to kill the leaders, maybe have them all get a few more recruits and rush you at some point?

Overall this is a great campaign, nice twists, story, and unusual tactics with undead. I'll echo some prior comments, the healer is great to have, but is passive. The sea captain becomes worthless at some point.

Ancient liches seem too powerful, if I were to play again, I would push to develop them - I think you could get a half dozen plus by the final scenario and chew it up easily.
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LordWolfDan
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by LordWolfDan »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

- 1.14.5, Normal

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

- 7

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

- Seems good. If I remember, there was an elvish enchantress in the scenario where Ardyn-Na has to move to the NE corner of the map. Maybe she didn't want to risk her life but asked someone else to do her job? Also, despite being short epilogue, I like it. While Ardyn-Na remains living, the book of dead or something can be related to DiD. Nice touch

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

- Being swarmed by lawful units during the day, lost several experienced units, but it was worth it in the end

(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

- 7

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

- I can't think of any. I like the end of this campaign
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Thanks for the feedback, LordWolfDan
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momom2
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by momom2 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

- 1.14.9, Normal

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

- 3... If you have a correct strategy and veteran units.
I first tried to move North imediately, to the keep that turned to be the Magi's, but I got crushed under a combination of harassing knights and high damage dwarves.
I had a LOT of banebows from the clash against Orcs, and they destroyed the Knights with ease. (Perhaps a game-breaking luck?)
I lacked draugs against the Magi, but then, ancient liches can do the job at night.
Then I tried to hold the fort, and choked the enemy at the bridge; they offered only a symbolic resistance. I got close to losing Ras-Tabahn to the Mermen, but it was only a bad thinking from me. Having the Saurian healer is an absolutely critical element of survival here, since I prefer wars of attrition.

Don't forget that I was extremely favored by my army of banebows. The enemy should not have been made stronger; maybe more creative?

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

- I like the personalities of the two protagonists; the dialogs are fine, but vastly underdeveloped and I think that stands for the campaign as a whole.
There's nothing at all when you defeat enemy leaders. I guess this scenario is all about gameplay, since you get to manage a huge army of undead against so many enemies, and the strategy summarizes about everything you have learned in the past scenarios.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

- The Magi were really the only threat I had to face, along with pesky dwarves. All other enemies died before they could get dangerous.

(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

- 7
- I really like how it manages to fit an use for every unit in a single scenario. The fight is pretty well balanced, especially with the delays in some leaders appearance. I would criticize however the lack of dialogs; there's no respite from combat.
It reminds me of The Hammer of Thursagan, but shorter and more intense.

I really liked it when I saw that leaders with no money left would come into the fight, saving me the trouble of chasing them.

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

- Add dialogues when leaders die. It could possibly develop the backstory. Like, what happens of Ardryn-Na at the end? She just disappears in a volcano!
Add some inventiveness to the enemy's strategy; the knights could try to surround you by passing the river South of the bridge for instance?
vudung201094
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by vudung201094 »

1) 1.14.11 , Challenging
2) 7-8
3) perfect.
4) the last scenario when the mages appear and i had no idea what to do.i lost 4 times because the mages do so much damages. i thought for many hours , thinking about what strategy should i use and i figured out the key location in the map - the island in the North what is surrounded by deep water. Only Nagas and mermans can reach that island but useless against Lichs. i ran all my landed troop there for safe and specters do the job - assassinate all leader.Then i just needed 5 specters to finish the game for me in 23 turns
5) 9
6)- i have too many golds and start ( about 500) with unlimited turns . i think if players can play with good strategy , they only need to have about 200 or 100 golds for start, because we already have unlimited turns.
- the dead captain is useless in most of the game. i think there is no defference between have and not having him. It will be better if he has better speeds for capturing villages and running.
Apparos_Vaklas
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by Apparos_Vaklas »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

Diabolic (Difficult) and Version 1.14.16

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

9 at first, 6 when I corrected my strategy.

I had 510 gold and a strong recall list: 5 Ancient Liches including the leaders and Shynal, Carcyn as a Highwayman (in retrospect, I should have made him a lich like he wanted), 1 Draug, 1 Nightgaunt, plenty of level 2 and 3 Spectres and Bone Archers, and all the other loyal units you get from the campaign.
(I don't save-load but I allow myself to restart a scenario if I believe I have lost too many valuable/story-related units)

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

Very good dialogue and a great conclusion to a great campaign. This is now my favourite campaign in BfW :D

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

Lost twice, once due to rushing the mermen a bit prematurely while losing too many units to saurians/nagas, and once due to knights and dwarves combining their forces and me not retreating properly during daytime. Both were caused by me not playing properly rather than any problems with the scenario.

(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

10/10. I enjoy playing large, open battles and this is a great example of one, as well as a perfect culmination to a really enjoyable campaign. I really liked how the layer of the map allowed for strategic chokepoints, mostly on the Knights faction.

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

I can't really think of anything.
jayuohz
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Re: Scenario 21: Against the World

Post by jayuohz »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

Corrupt (Challenging)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

10

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

Good.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

It took me months to finish this scenario. Initially, I don't have enough advanced units (1 ancient Lich, 2 Liches, 2 Spectres, 1 level 3 skeleton and a few level 2 units). With this army, it turns out to be impossible to win. I tried all sorts of strategies. The best I can do is defeating the saurians, nagas, knights and most of the dwarfs and most of the mermen. However, I don't have enough force left for the mages and elfs. In the end, I decided to replay three previous scenarios to build a stronger army. Once I did that, winning is much easier.

(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

10. I really like the story. It is great to see Ardonna progressing through her research/journey. Starting from learning to control a few bats and zombies to wielding an entire undead army and fight against the world. :)

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

I think it is pretty fun already.
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